I think I'm a part of the first generation of journalists to skip print media entirely, and I've learned a lot these last few years at Forbes. My work has appeared on TVOvermind, IGN, and most importantly, a segment on The Colbert Report at one point. Feel free to follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, write me on Facebook or just email at paultassi(at)gmail(dot)com. I'm also almost finished with my sci-fi novel series, The Earthborn Trilogy.

Is $50 Worth of Dead Space 3 DLC Still a 'Microtransaction'?

Much fuss has been made over the fact that EA has now vowed to include some form of microtransactions in all their new titles from here on out. The concept is nothing new, mobile games and free to play titles have been using microtransactions for a while now as a main source of revenue, but the fact that the idea is being brought to full-fledged $60 titles has ruffled a few feathers.

We’ll get to see the most prominent example of this new push with the upcoming Dead Space 3, and now we have a full list of what exactly players can purchase with real world money from the in-game store.

Bot Capacity Upgrade $4.99

Bot Personality Pack $4.99

First Contact Pack Free

Marauder Pack $4.99

Sharpshooter Pack $4.99

Tundra Recon Pack $4.99

Witness the Truth Pack $4.99

Bot Accelerator $4.99

Epic Weapon & Resource Pack $2.99

Online Pass $9.99

Ultra Weapon & Resource Pack $1.99

Resource Pack $0.99

If you add up the majority of the packs you can buy, a player could easily spend an additional $40 on the game, $50 if they needed an online pass, which hardly seems like a “microtransaction” at all.

Of course it’s not required that the player purchase these items, that would be a huge overreach. As such, it’s not necessary to chastise EA for this decision, but it should be recognized as what it is: an experiment.

As annoying as it is that a company feels like they have the right to charge an extra $50 for content in an already $60 game, they do in fact, have that right. But if we want to see the practice fade away, all players have to do collectively is not buy the packages. If it’s demonstrated that microtransactions don’t work in already pricey games, then we’ll see less of them in the future.

But will this happen? I doubt it. Microtransactions have kept free to play titles and mobile games afloat and profitable for years now. I never understood the mindset of people who spent large amounts of money on an otherwise free game, but they exist in droves. And I have a hunch that the same sort of people will somehow justify a similar purchase within a $60 game too. Maybe not to the same extent, but enough to make it worth EA’s while.

There’s really no downside for EA here. Sure, they take a bit of negative press, but so long as the items being sold don’t unbalance multiplayer or become required for singleplayer, there’s little actual harm being done to the game. This seems like a no-brainer for them because they don’t have to develop additional content to sell like with traditional DLC, they’re simply offering a faster, easier way to get the items in the game that already exist. As I mentioned in an earlier article, they’re essentially selling cheat codes.

Of course there’s a tipping point as many longtime Zynga players could tell you. At a certain point in many games, it becomes borderline required to spend real money to play a game with any sort of efficiency, and those who don’t are left in the dust by those who do. This many not apply to Dead Space 3, but what about the next time they try this? And the time after that?

There’s nothing inherently offensive about this list of microtransactions, other than the idea that a whole bunch of $5 item packs are still considered “micro.” This is an experiment EA has every right to conduct and we, as consumers, have every right to reject. But will we? That remains to be seen.

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I don’t even buy the new games from EA. After simply not caring about the consumer base (See: To this day you can’t play Battlefield 2 with the Steam overlay even if you bought it on Steam, the completely asinine excuse for “anti-virus” they have will insta-kick you) and grabbing established franchises or studios and driving them to the ground (RIP Westwood, Bioware, it was a fun ride) made my last purchase be BF3, a game that is prettier but still has worse gameplay than BF:BC2, has worse maps than BF2 and is only available in a worse online store than Steam. So, after the TORtanic ride, I don’t even care anymore, I’m just waiting for the crash and burn, too bad they had to take so many with them.

P.S: Honorable mention goes to THQ, one of my favorite developers/publishers that recently was dissolved. Maybe we will get STALKER 2 and Metro: The Last Light in the next lifetime…

Sure thing! I have no investments in either company, and if it was Activision doing this instead of EA, I would be writing that article. And I went out of my way to *not* bash EA here. They have every right to attempt something like this, even if it’s something that annoys most gamers. It’s an experiment, as I said.

I have targeted nearly every major gaming company in the past when they’ve done things to toe the line. For Activision criticism you might look here:

“Sure, they take a bit of negative press,”. Yah, from you, right now. You are contradicting your own call out. LOL.

Okay, I now see that you are writing negative things about other gaming companies. Ever write something positive? Go against the today mainstream journalism of “fear, bash and more fear is what sells”. What about a “How the top gaming companies that have innovated and morphed their businesses to still remain profitable in a 9 year old gaming console cycle” article? The difficulties and advantages of building your own digital distribution platform. Dealing with a here on day gone the other Free-to-play business competition. You bash and point fingers at all these companies that are just trying their best to provide us with creative, fun, cheap entertainment while trying to stay in business to cater to the loud vocal minority of EA haters/ATVI fanboys. EA beats BAC for most hated company… Bad ending vs. losing your house. Yah, your supporters are totally sane.

You know I try really hard not to call anyone out for their BS here on Forbes because this is a professional website, but you seem to be as out of touch with both what is profitable and what is marketable to the gaming community as the higher ups of EA are.

Maximizing profits is not necessarily a bad thing if done correctly but EA (and other publishers) have made one continuous bad decision after another in an effort to maximize profit while diminishing quality.

This isn’t just about hating on EA its a bad business decision overall. The long term effects of putting microtransactions into a full retail price game can only lead to diminishing returns on profits. Why? Because EA (and others) have a habit of taking these monitization practices too far.

For example: DLC used to be for expanding content. Now most of it is day one release or disc locked with the price doubling every year or so for diminished content. You don’t even have to look that far back for that one. Mass Effect 2 Katsumi was a $5 DLC purchase while Mass Effect 3 From Ashes was the exact same type of expanded content for double the price.

So with microtransactions it will start with small already overpriced packs and then expand to encompass Ritticello’s vision of charging everyone a dollar every time they want to reload. (Don’t believe that one? Youtube it)This will hurt long term sales as trust in the company continues to erode. Because its apparent they are not providing quality products at the premium luxury prices that they already charge.

Not every IP needs to be a franchise. And not every Franchise needs to sell 5 million units to be successful. It’s obvious the company is trying to play with their IP’s formula to get their version of WOW (TOR), GOW (ME, DS series), or COD (Battlefield) so they can see the disproportionately large profits those titles see. But they wind up hurting the quality of their own products and ultimately hurt the longevity of their own franchises in the process. There’s a reason those titles are runaway successes. But copying the formula won’t copy the profits they see. Putting in short term monitization gimicks to artificially inflate profits won’t get them the return their looking for either.

he is absolutely right. EA is full of shit, and are just trying to squeeze as much money as they can out of people. I am a huge fan of the Deadspace series, but i am now rethinking buying it at all. They are taking a free to play revenue model with a game that is not free to play. How is that not trying to rip people off? You can talk about staying profitable and staying competitive all day long, but at the end of the day i am sure EA is not hurting for money or losing is competitive edge which just leaves milking a franchise for all its worth without any regard to consumers.

No, not at all. I trade stock for a living and I do range trade EA. It is a good volatile stock. You seem to have your finger on the gaming world but always with a negative spin, following in the “Gaming companies are out to get us” mentality. I have put about 300 hours into Borderlands, they should have charged me $150 for it. Let’s see some metrics on how the game companies are going to do when the new console cycle hits. Maybe they won’t have to DLC “nickel and dime” their customers to try to stay afloat.

This “George Henderson” is a paid shill by EA, please ignore his half thruths and attempts to deflect the well deserved hate for all things EA in another direction.

As a passionate, educated, and well informed gamer, EA, Activision and to a lesser extent ubisoft are the 3 biggest blights upon gaming, everything they touch turns to crap and have ruined and run into the ground more development studios and great games series than you can poke a stick at.

PS: As a rule of thumb to those who aren’t as into gaming as me, if a game is advertised on TV, its almost always a bad game (unless its from japan, then it might be good) and the publishers decided to put more money into advertising it than developing it to make sure its actually not a crap game.

The sooner EA and Activision crash and burn we real gamers are better off.

Mass Effect 3 was an objectively bad game worse than its prequels, BF3 was a pretty, but objectively bad game, and inferior to almost all its prequels, Origin is spyware and should not be installed on your pc on principle, EA regularly hire shills like “George Henderson” to keep people complaining about their awful buisness antics under wraps, and engage in PR spin more than any other publisher, and their customer service system is amongst the worst you will encounter in gaming (the only worse CS might be xbox live, the best are CCP).

@George Henderson: If you are disappointed with EAs stock and want to complain about the bad press it is getting as of late (like the last two years+ or so), here’s one of your contact persons who could change that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR6-u8OIJTE

I’m not sure how you got the idea that this is somehow Pauls (or any other “game journalists”) fault. They don’t have much influence over EAs business practices, they just report about them. And if you ask me Paul has been far too tame with his criticism.

Paul, I most definitely agree with you that it is well within EA’s right to do this rather annoying version of micro-transactions. So George are you saying that as gamers we should not voice an opinion to be treated like paying customers for a consumer product? I think you are perhaps doing a “hi pot meet kettle” scenerio. So because we say something about a companies business practices we do not agree with that makes us not sane in your opinion? So while publishers and developers are well within their right to try different business models and practices. Gamers(the customer) also have a right to speak their mind about weather they agree with them or not as well.

Maybe, just maybe, he’ll write about anything that gamers are likely to not like. Is it really his fault that EA just so happens to be the one that continually does things like this? Rather than say ‘Why do you keep being so critical of EA for doing things like this’ perhaps you should say ‘Why does EA keep feeling the need to do things like this that upset the very people they want to buy their product’.

Sim City: – Always Online DRM (expect more of this come Launch: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130127/19023721799/redditor-points-out-flaws-simcitys-online-only-drm-gets-banned-ea-his-troubles.shtml ) – Day1 DLC – City Themes (British, French, German) – Exclusive to Origin – The possibility of being banned and locked out of all ones games for anything they may deem an “exploit”

Dead Space 3: – Day1 DLC (and “announced” DLC) – Microtransactions in SinglePlayer – Exclusive to Origin – They screwed it up with the CoOp and other design choices, so it doesn’t seem to be much like the Prequels anymore

Your numbers are a little ingenous. If you buy the game at retail for $60 you don’t need to pay for an online pass (and there might be others like that). I don’t see anything on this game thats any different from any other game with add-ons.

I totally agree Paul. I can see the commercial aspect of EA’s decision but to be honest, on the back of this micro transaction and the fact that the PC version is the same graphics standard as ten year old consoles I’m giving dead Space 3 a total miss.

Shame, I was actually looking forward to it but under the circumstances I figure the end result just isn’t worth my cash and after all is said and done, it’s a game.

At this point, it is very far-fetched to imagine EA having any press to make them look worse then they already are.

As for micro-transactions, I’ve always been very much against them. I rather the company make a complete game and then sell it to me as a one-time, complete purchase. It just makes sense that a player should have access to all content once the game has been purchased.

The only exception to the above scenario is with massive content updates akin to that of expansions. Those I can understand an extra charge for. Otherwise, it’s just “look what we have in the game that you can’t access until you pay us even more cash”. Greedy would be an understatement.

Is there always such whining in these comments? If you don’t like the article, either don’t read it or provide some evidence for your opinion. Attacking the author isn’t going to make EA’s product or business model any better.

Personally – i don’t have a problem with paying for DLC at all…if i get something out of the game. Even if the DLC is actually not worth it – if i got an enjoyable 50h+ game in the beginning, i have no problem showing my appreciation to the developers with my creditcard. I would do the same for the manufacturer of my laundry machine, which is doing exactly what is supposed to do for many years now. Recently – i was disappointed by almost every AAA title – consequently, i did not purchase anything additionally. I am still very much in gaming, but now that i can afford buying titles at release for full price – i haven’t really found anything worth the money for probably the last two years.

The absolute end is reached when DLC gives an advantage in e.g. multiplayer games or if it feels as an essential part of the game as in day 1 ME3 DLC (only read about the controversy – never bought ME3, my first boycott after beeing burned with DA2) – Especially for full price games as you said in your article.

Basically – in these times, i find it especially important to actually show publishers that some practices are simply not acceptable. I think mostly the gamers are to blame here. If this proves to be successfull – It’s our fault. Sure EA is not giving a damn about what we think about their business practices – they naturally want to get the most out of it for the minimum of investment. That’s common sense for any company. But if somebody is buying a Volkswagen Golf GTI with extras for the price of base Porsche 911 (just an example) – then you can just point at the guy (girl) buying it. The power to generate money for the company is always on the costumer side. You always have alternatives these days.

Only the future will show how successful EA will be with all these recent decisions. However – i am wondering if all this will one day serve as a example for bad business at universities. The only thing I am afraid off is that this will change my personal experience of gaming. But then – I hope I still have Indie-Games :-)

So besides the 60 bucks you pay , they want you to spend more 50 bucks? EA retarded as always, also they raped the game mechanics so they could get a “wider audience” . Knew that would happen when the news “EA wants to sell 5 mill copies in order to proceed with franchise” showed up.

Before you come with the argument , oh its capitalism we need to pay the bills, I answer with, I will stick with the company that treat me like a costumer not some gullible retard that will buy any trash that you throw.

You know, fast food companies could take away or at least, reduce sauces, pickles, cheese, and seasoning in their products and offered us those for extra money. Or the film industry could do the same by taking some minutes part of their film and charge an extra cash for it if we want to.

Seriously, they have the right to do that but it is stupid, treating customer like milk cow. Do they know about business code or ethic at all? This is bullshit and I hope only EA or Activision that stupid enough to do this stupid asspull.

I suppose in the short term, the best gamers can hope for is that critics factor in this issue when reviewing new games, rating the game without any DLC or microtransactions, and perhaps comparing it to the game play with the two. I certainly don’t want to spend my money on games where customers are essentially forced to pay for the latter in order to fully experience the game. I guess I’m also curious where the line is between profitability (these titles ARE expensive to make, after all) and greed.

the problem is…as a consumer you never know if a DLC was originally intended as a part of the main game. This gives the developers more incentives to milk more profit from something that was originally intended for the main game.

and please don’t call this “an experiment” this model has been around for many years. Micro Transactions is like saying…look we had the time to make this digital model of a space suit during development….but we decided to take it out of the game and charge you super premium….if you want it…

The microtransactions in-game with the crafting system paired with this, what a debacle, then we discover Sim City has microtransactions with undefined contents and they release a sham beta “stress test” that is in truth a promotional trial – the bug report button wasn’t even on.

EA, man, it amazes me they have such widespread support and people keep buying their games.

You say in your article that “there’s really no downside for EA here”. I don’t think that’s true. Their charts will show the percentage of players that only bought the base game, and the percentage of sales of each DLC. What they won’t show, however, is the number of people that decided to skip the game altogether. Or those that will wait until it goes on $10 sale six months from now. Or those that still want to play it but will buy it used, just to deny EA their profits. And there certainly will be people like that. It’s obviously wild guessing, but it’s entirely possible that they will loose more profits that way than they will make from all their microtransactions. Just take Skyrim for example; a game that’s big and that – PS3 issues aside – treats their audience fair. A year from the release it was still selling for $60. What are the odds any EA title, streamlined and filled to brim with microtransactions, will ever fare nearly as well?

I agree Paul – it is EAs right to try this avenue of revenue. We can only hope that it fails through gamers not willing to give away their money so freely. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will, as I know there are a lot of people who just play games to kill and maim with as much firepower as possible, therefore microtransactions and DLC weapons packs are a sweet way of achieving that earlier on, rather than later.

One of the great things about playing the original Half-Life was that you pick up more powerful weapons as you go: start with a crowbar – my god, what can I do with that? It turned out to be enough, but picking up that first machine gun was sweet, and then later the Gluon Gun which just upped the anti and made you thankful for having it when entering the Xen homeworld. The crescendo of gameplay matched the crescendo of storytelling, rather than just having the option of purchasing weapons during or before starting a game.